Mitropolitan Nifon - the first president of the Assembly of Deputies, 1862-1866

The 1866 Constitution

It proclaims the title of Romania;

It does not mention the country’s dependence on the Ottoman Empire;

The prince has attributes only a sovereign has;

The national Representation was comprised of two assemblies: the Chamber and the Senate. The prerogatives of the Assembly of Deputies (Chamber) include the right to self-management, to respond to the message of the throne, to make laws, to interpellate (the ministry executive personnel on any matter). The special attribution of the Chamber is the one concerning the debate on and adoption of the budget;

The parliamentary system established in 1866 was characterised by the leading role of the legislative authority. This almost became an equal partner of the prince in making the laws, and acquired the right to ask the ministers questions about the political line pursued and even submit them to parliamentary investigations. However, the prince would keep his decisive role in the legislative process. He could forward his own draft laws to the Parliament.

Historian Nicolae Iorga made de remark: "Romania could not just consent to the Russian claims to exchange Romanian land - national, old, historical, to negotiate on this fact in an entirely peaceful manner; this would have been a perpetual shame".

Grigore Gafencu, on the Parliament of Romania, in 1931: "In this new Parliament, all the parties are represented. The majority is weak, both from the viewpoint of numbers an the political one. The electoral law saved the Government and gave it everythink the electors did not. In the ranks of the majority, many opportunist politicians, clients of all political clubs, also many civilians…, nice and unprepared people, client of select clubs."

The parliamentary history in Romania starts in 1831, when, in Wallachia, a constitutional document was adopted, named The Organic Regulations, implemented, a year later, in Moldavia too. The organic regulations set the fundations for the parliamentary institution in the Romanian Principalities.

The Organic Regulations- Wallachia -

The Organic Regulations- Moldovia -

The Paris Agrement of 1858, and, mostly, The Agreement's Developing Statues (wich introduced the two-chamber representation), adopted on the initiative of prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, by means of a plebiscite, in 1864, perfected and enlarged the principle of national representation. Under the political regime established by the Paris Agreement, the legislative power faced an obvious process of modernisation, and the legislative power as National Representation, which operated in acordance with the organisation and operation mode of parliaments in Western Europe at that time.

The opening of the Election Assembly by prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza on 29 Februarie 1860

The historical process of formation of the Parliament of Romania in the modern age strongly boosted the affirmation of national sovereignty, subsequently leading to the Union of the two Principalities, in 1859. Under the dome of the Romanian Parliament, on 9 may 1877, the Declaration of Romania's Independence was read, and, in 1920, the documents of union of the Romanian historical Provinces with the country were ratified.

In February 1938, under strong political pressure, King Carol II, who always underminned the role of the parliamentary institution, imposed a rule of authoritarian monarchy. Under the royal dictatorship regime, the Parliament only became a decorative body, deprived of its main atributes.

In the autumn of 1940, by the setting up of the military dictatorship regime, the activity of the Parliament was suspended. After 23 August 1944, under the pressure of the Soviet and communist forces, the Parliament was re-organised as a single legislative body, the Assembly of Deputies, to be changed, according to the 1948 Constitution, into the Great National Assembly, a formal body, totally subordinate to the communist power.

The Revolution of December 1989 opened the road for Romania coming back to the authentic democratic regime, based on free elections and political pluralism, observing human rights, the separation of powers and the rulers responsibility before the representative bodies. Thanks to the documents issued by the provisional revolutionary power, Romania has returned to the two-chamber parliamentary system. All these stipulations can be found in the country's new Constitution, approved by referendum in 1991.

During this so tormented decade of post-communist transition, the Chamber of Deputies - along with the Senate - has debated and adopted an impressive number of laws and regulations, aimed at reforming the entire society on democratic bases, giving guarantees for the respect of fundamental human right, promoting the reform and privatisation, consolidating the market economic institutions and those of the state ruled by law, which are prerequisites for Romania's integration in the European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

The resolution of the Chamber of Deputies of September 1878:

"The Chamber of Deputies has learnt about the dispositions taken by the Berllin Congress as regards Romania. Forced to do this by the decision of the Great Powers and not wishing to hinder the establishment of peace, the Chamber empowers the Government to obey Europe’s general will and that is why it shall call back its military and civil servants from Bessarabia, and shall take into possesion Dobrudja, the Danube Delta, and the Snake Island".

The five-point resolution of Moldavia's Ad-hoc Assembly, read on Monday, 7 octomber 1857, in the seventh public session:

"the first, the most important, most general, and most national wishes of the country are:
1. The observance of the principalities' rights, especially their autonomy, in the contents of the old capitulations concluded with the Sublime Porte.
2. The union of the Principalities in a single state named Romania.
3. A foreign prince to inherit the throne, selected from a European ruling dynasty and whose heirs should be raised in the country's religion.
4. Neutrality of the Principalities'land.
5. the law-making power should be entrusted to a public assembly where all the national interests are represented."